It was in March of 1973, while waiting in the gas line at Williams AFB (because of the oil embargo of that year), that I met another student pilot. We got to talking about cars and insurance, as I was driving my Volvo P1800S. He told me about USAA, which I joined the following week, leaving the Allstate Insurance Company. The following year, after I graduated from UPT, we purchased USAA renter's insurance, again leaving Allstate. As the years went by, we've continued our relationship with USAA, paying little to no attention to other insurance companies. USAA was like the air we'd breathe, it was always there, in the background. We rarely needed their help, but when we did, they always came through to our satisfaction.
It seems that every few years or so, this same conversation comes up here. So, for the past every few years I'd go about the process of checking out other companies, with an eye toward saving money, because frankly, we've always been satisfied with how we were treated at USAA, but hey, a dollar is a dollar.
So I just spent some time on State Farm's site, and then having grown tired of the electronic world, I called GEICO and talked to a really nice agent who made sure she "compared apples to apples" in giving me a quote for our two cars. Following then are the results that I got. Now before I continue, I must confess that we insure both our two cars and the house with USAA, and I assume that I get some sort of multi-insurance discount for doing so, and that the following two quotes (from State Farm and GEICO) do not include such discounts. That said, here's what I got for quotes.
I pay USAA $1826 a year for our two cars.
State Farm quoted me $1784 a year for both cars.
GEICO's quote was for $1440 a year for both cars.
So for me, here's the rub: 1) I'm happy with my dealings with USAA; 2) each year I get a distribution from my USAA Subscriber's Account, which came last week. The check was in the amount of $642.64. They send these out once a year, usually in December. I've seen them be as little as $400 and as high as $950, depending how the company did that year, as approved by the BOD; 3) in addition, (and this is something completely new to us) in their letter of last week, they said that because we now have been members for 40 years, another distribution will be forthcoming in February, again if approved by the Board of Directors; and finally, 4) there is the Subscriber Savings Account, an account that USAA opens for each member and puts money in each year. You can't take that money out until you sever your ties with USAA, but it's there for you then. Sounds sort of crazy, but I actually like the idea of having an emergency fund, that if push came to shove, I could leave USAA and a few months later, receive a check with all the monies from the SSA account, which in my case is closing in on 12 or 13 thousand dollars.
There in a not-so-short nutshell is why I'll continue to stay with USAA. They save me a money, over the course of the year, and I've always been treated great. What more could I ask for? We've got a few investments with them and they're doing just ok, and we don't use their credit cards or bank.
Obviously your mileage may vary.